In spite of perpetually increasing processing speeds, the need for optical character recognition (OCR) readers that are programmed to efficiently search captured image data for recognizable indicia and to recognize such indicia has not diminished.
The increase in processing speeds has been accompanied by multiplication of the resolution of imaging arrays, and a corresponding multiplication of the number of processing operations required to process images captured by optical readers. The availability of higher processing speeds and higher resolution imaging systems, in turn, has encouraged users of OCR readers to develop OCR applications requiring an ever increasing number of processing operations.
In addition to being too slow for their designated applications, OCR readers have been observed to be poorly equipped to recognize characters obliquely oriented in a captured image. Existing optical readers generally require a specific orientation of a reader relative to a character during image capture for efficient recognition of a character.
There is a need for a faster OCR reader which provides omnidirectional character recognition.